HERNING, Denmark — Defending champion Canada trounced Japan 9-0 at the women´s world ice hockey championship, with eight players contributing goals in the one-sided encounter, to top the Group A standings ahead of the United States. Also, Denmark beat Hungary 1-0.
Canada, the record 11-time tournament winners, wasted little time in getting off the mark when Victoria Bach opened the scoring in the second minute of the game with a power-play marker.
Marie-Philip Poulin and Emma Maltais also scored in the first period to open a comfortable lead.
Blayre Turnbull added a fourth early in the second before the floodgates opened. Poulin got her second of the game with Ella Shelton and Jamie Lee Rattray also scoring within the next five minutes.
Japan was overmatched from the start and didn’t register a shot on goal until the dying seconds of the second period when already down 7-0.
Sarah Potomak and Sarah Fillier rounded out the scoring in the third period to complete Canada’s 17th straight victory, a stretch that spans the 2021 worlds, the Winter Olympics and now three games at the current tournament.
It was the second meeting of the teams at a world championship and represents an improvement of sorts for Japan.
Canada is top with three wins from three games. The US has won its opening two games.
In the second period, Canada’s veteran core picked up the offensive charge with goals by Blayre Turnbull and Marie-Philip Poulin.
Turnbull scored finishing a rush on a cross-crease pass from Victoria Bach, while Brianne Jenner stripped a puck before sending Poulin in on a semi-breakaway.
Ella Shelton and Jamie Lee Rattray also scored for Canada who entered the final period up 7-0. On Shelton’s goal, Bach again backed in the defenders with her speed before Shelton finished the play top shelf.
The third period saw Sarah Potomak open the scoring before Sarah Fillier finally found the back of the net to make it 9-0.
Denmark won a closely fought contest against Hungary 1-0 at the Iscentre Nord.
Julie Ostergaard netted the only goal of the game off an Josefine Jakobsen assist in the third period.
Hungary went all-in in the final minute by swapping their goaltender with an attacker, but the Dane’s held on.
This was Denmark’s first victory of the tournament and has moved up to third in Group B.
Away from the ice rink, Swedish player Lina Ljungblom was handed a one-game suspension after the competition’s Disciplinary Panel determined she had “recklessly endangered” Germany’s Katarina Jobst-Smith and violated the checking from behind rule during the shootout victory.
Hungary and Denmark both have three points. The Czechs lead the group with six points, one more than Sweden.
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